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Viral Email Destroys Career and Embarrasses Employer
By mid-December, many offices around the world are customarily infused with the Christmas spirit. But one young London woman got the fright of her life when she found that her contribution had suddenly taken on global dimensions. The British media ran with her story on December 12 and it rolled on from there.
It started when graduate trainee, Holly Leam-Taylor, planned an awards ceremony to name the most attractive men in her office. Thinking this would be a bit of tongue-in-cheek fun, she emailed a small number of female colleagues at City accountancy firm Deloitte asking them to vote. With nine categories such as “Fittest body” and “Boy most likely to sleep his way to the top”, her message certainly grabbed attention. So much so that the email was forwarded around the world, spreading like wildfire over the internet. Soon millions of people had read it. But it wasn’t such a laughing matter for her managers and less than 24 hours after sending the email, Ms Leam-Taylor felt obliged to resign. A graduate in management from Warwick University, she had joined Deloitte as a consultant analyst in August 2009 on an estimated $45,000 a year.
Speaking from the Surrey home where she lives with her parents, the 22-year-old said, “It was just a lighthearted joke to celebrate Christmas. It’s a complete shock that one email could spread like this and who would think it could get so far out of hand? In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to do but there wasn’t anything controversial or sexist in there. But if I could take it back I would and I will be so, so careful about sending any emails in future.” She hit the send button on her Christmas Awards email on Tuesday, December 8, and when she arrived at her office the next day found her inbox full. “It was crazy,” she said. “I had so many emails from all over the world saying I had made people’s day and that I’d put a smile on their face. I had loads of emails from men in the office nominating themselves for various categories and everyone thought it was hilarious. But once I realised it had been forwarded outside the office I realised both Deloitte’s and my reputation had been damaged so I decided to hand my notice in there and then.”
Ms Leam-Taylor sent her letter of resignation at 3.00 p.m. on Wednesday and left the office. She insists she was not asked to do so, but thought she should jump before she was pushed, adding that, “In all our contracts it says we mustn’t use our emails for personal use so I knew I was in breach of that.”
A Deloitte spokesman said, “We are very disappointed by this matter. While intended as a joke, this is a stark reminder of the need to exercise careful judgement when using email.”
That sums up the situation well. Ms Leam-Taylor’s case is a salutary warning to all employers to make sure those working in their enterprise understand that a company’s communications system is for business-related matters only. While jokes are usually lighthearted, that’s not always the case. They may also be highly defamatory. Some are even sinister and have nothing at all to do with humour. In a flash, such emails can destroy your company’s reputation. If you suspect that someone might be generating traffic like this in your firm, call in a team of professionals quickly. Using state-of-the-art technology and new areas of expertise like computer forensics, they can provide you with a clear picture of what’s going on.
